Fire Tripper

Orphan's Rumiko Takahashi mini-festival continues with 1985's OVA Fire Tripper. This is a terrific time-travel adventure, the first of the Rumic World OVAs. Orphan is proud to release a new version with a translation-checked script, encoded from a Japanese laserdisc. (The first three Rumic World OVAs have never been released on digital media. Why?)

The story opens in Warring States Japan. Bandits led by the villainous Akauma attack a peasant village, burning it to the ground. A little girl named Suzu is trapped in her burning house, but just as the flaming ceiling beams fall on her, she disappears. Miraculously, Suzu is found, unharmed, outside a modern Japanese city, where she is adopted by a local family. Fast forward a decade or more. Suzuko is now a normal high school student, watching over a youngster named Shu. She is walking Shu home when a gas explosion catapults her to her original era and home - although she doesn't remember them. She is about to be raped (or worse) by Akauma's bandits when she is rescued by a local boy named Shukumaru, who takes her home to meet his little sister Suzu.

Although shocked and confused by her new surroundings, Suzuko gradually figures out the truth. She is a "fire tripper", able to traverse time when she is in dire peril from flames. Shukumaru is the Shu from her era, thrown back by the gas explosion, and Suzu is Suzuko in the Warring States period, before she traveled forward during the bandit attack. Can she straighten out the time-line confusion? Is she really Shukumaru's sister? And above all, where in time does she actually belong?

The principal voice cast includes:

• Mizushima Yuu (Shukumaru) played played the title roles in Ai no Senshi Rainbowman, God Mars, and Guyver: Out of Control. He also played the title role in Bander Book, Makabe Shun in Tokimeki Tonight, and Dai-chan in Katte ni Shirokuma, all Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in Golden Kamuy.
• Shimamoto Sumi (Suzuko, Suzu) debuted as Clarisse in The Castle of Cagliostro. She starred as Sara in Princess Sara, Nausicaa in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Otonashi Kyouko in Maison Ikkoku, and Dayan in Neko no Dayan. She also played Shokupanman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Tinkerbell in Peter Pan no Bouken, Antoinette in Reporter Blues, Big Mama in Bakuretsu Hunter, Sue in Maris the Choujo, Elice in Fire Emblem, Miss Akiko in The Girl with Blue Eyes, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf. The last four are Orphan releases.
• Genda Tesshou (Akauma) played Colonel Muto in Joker Game, Moloch in Yondemasu Azazel-san, Rei in the Urusei Yatsura franchise, Moguro Fukuzou in New Laughing Salesman,  and "Oyaji" in Mitsuboshi Colors. He also played Jin Kiryu in Blue Sonnet, Zigong in Eiyuu Banka Koushi-den, Paul Rusch in Yume Kakeru Kougen, Jim Hyatt in AWOL Compression Remix, the loyal lieutenant Galbreath in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, the dragonman Baguda in Greed, the narrator in Akai Hayate and Meisou-ou Border, Dog McCoy in Dallos, Hebopi in Wild 7, rebel leader Oosukune in Izumo, and Rikiishi's trainer Kuroki and Kirishima in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, all Orphan releases.
• Tanaka Mayumi (young Shu) made her debut at age 10 in Kimba the White Lion. She's probably best known for her roles as Pazu in Castle in the Sky, Giovanni in Night on the Galactic Railway, Kuririn in the original Dragonball, and of course, Monkey D. Luffy in every incarnation of One Piece. She also played Tokishima Gen in MAPS: Densetsu no Samayoeru Seijin-tachi , Flene in Cool Cool Bye, Mit-sah in White Fang, Rocco the fox in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, and Son Gokuu in I am Son Gokuu: Tezuka Osamu Monogatari, all Orphan projects.
  

The director, Takahashi Motosuke, founded his own studio, Studio Dootaku. He directed the first three Rumic World OVAs among numerous other projects.

The original subtitles are from Kotomi. They probably derive from the US Manga Corp subtitled VHS release in the 1990s. tenkenX6 checked the dialog and revised the songs from official lyrics. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset (very little to do). Nemesis and Rezo QCed. Intrepid encoded from a Japanese laserdisc ripped on the Domesday Duplicator. The source is a mess of blended frames and worse, so Intrepid encoded it at 59.94 fps to minimize the visual awfulness. There are still places that don't look great, but it's the best that can be done with the source material. niki provided an English dub track, taken from the US Manga Corps dubbed VHS release. There is a signs-and-only-songs subtitle track to go with it.

Fire Tripper is a great watch, showing Rumiko Takahashi in a dramatic rather than comedic mode. You can get the release from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. The torrent post also contains a patch for updating the single-audio release to dual audio, and the dual-audio version can be downloaded from the IRC bot directly.